The White House has a new election-year plan to stop companies from shopping overseas for tax havens.

While details remain sketchy, the concept outlined by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address seems crystal clear: Start taxing foreign profits.

The administration figures that if the IRS gets to collect the money anyway, then multinationals have less of a reason to move jobs out of the country. The tax could deter companies from hopscotching around the world to whichever country cuts them the best deal.

“We are trying to discourage the race to the bottom,” explained White House economics adviser Gene Sperling. “We’re trying to discourage the notion that when somebody is thinking about where to locate production or services, that they should not believe that they can go to a tax haven as a way of having a tax advantage over a company that chose to stay in the United States.”

Still, with Congress and the White House at loggerheads at nearly every turn — and no expectation of change before the November elections — Obama’s tax call appears much more of a campaign rallying cry than a proposal on the verge of becoming law. The president clearly has positioned tax reform as a lever for lifting employment, blaming the exodus of work overseas on a misguided federal Tax Code.

“From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax,” Obama told a joint session of Congress in his State of the Union address. “And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here in America.”

In practice, though, tweaking taxes to boost employment might be easier said than done.

Corporate tax policy has become a source of tension for the administration. Union leaders objected last month when the president’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness recommended lowering tax rates to internationally competitive levels. Meanwhile, Obama’s call for a “basic minimum” tax on worldwide earnings could thwart any kind of consensus with Republicans on reforming the code.

Until the administration discloses more specifics around its 2013 budget proposal in a couple of weeks — like what the rate might be — Republican lawmakers and business leaders are reserving judgment. But not surprisingly, they have serious concerns.

Many congressional Republicans and several corporate executives on Obama’s own jobs council want the government to adopt some kind of territorial tax system, where the United States would not tax income earned outside its borders.

A territorial system would let companies bring foreign earnings home without being required to pay as much as 35 percent to the government. Business profits totaling $1.4 trillion are trapped overseas to avoid those taxes, according to JPMorgan Chase.

“If the rate is too high and the administration doesn’t intend to move to a territorial system like nearly all of our global competitors, then it is tough to imagine how this benefits American companies and the workers who we want to hire here at home,” a Republican congressional staffer told POLITICO.

The White House and congressional Republicans support the general idea of lowering corporate rates and eliminating some deductions to broaden the tax base. But because of the nation’s burgeoning deficit, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says companies shouldn’t count on a massive windfall from any changes.

“When we do tax reform, we’re going to have to be helping contribute to deficit reduction,” Geithner said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.” “We don’t have the ability of offering the American people or the American businesspeople community a net tax cut.”

By insisting that foreign profits also be taxed, Obama could make passing reforms in a divided Congress even more unlikely, according to the RATE Coalition, whose members include AT&T, Boeing, Ford, Home Depot, Nike, Time Warner Cable and Walt Disney.

“The more complications you throw in there, the less likely this will get done,” said Jim Pinkerton, co-chairman of the coalition and former White House domestic policy adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. “You want to focus on something that will get enacted.”

Many corporations also fear a tax on foreign profits would hurt their business worldwide. The policy could put into conflict the administration’s two steps to revive manufacturing, which they’ve branded as “build it here and sell it everywhere.” A new tax geared to promote domestic manufacturing could undermine global sales.

“From our perspective, not a good idea at all,” said Dorothy Coleman, vice president of tax and domestic economic policy for the National Association of Manufacturers. “In effect, it would discriminate against U.S. companies to the advantage of foreign companies.”

Companies consider several factors when opening a factory overseas — not just taxes, Coleman said. Most firms open plants near their customers and supply chains, making it easier for them to tap foreign markets.

Taxing foreign earnings might handicap U.S. corporations trying to expand overseas, she continued. An American-owned factory in Düsseldorf, Germany, would send a share of its profits to the federal government, while its German competitor would gain a competitive edge by having a lower tax burden.

The flip side is that the sort of territorial tax system favored by Republicans could cause companies to move jobs offshore.

In October, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) outlined reforms that would exclude 95 percent of foreign profits from taxes. The change would make it easier for money to flow back to the United States for investment, but the traffic could just as easily go the other way.

The policy could encourage companies to lower their tax bills by shifting their earnings — and presumably more of their workers — to other countries, said Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel at Citizens for Tax Justice.

“That’s like pouring gasoline on a fire,” she said. “It’s a huge incentive to be even more aggressive in offshoring profits.”

Striking the right balance between jobs at home and growth abroad will become critical in any reform. Even if they can’t agree on a fix, both Democrats and Republicans acknowledge that current tax laws have worsened the economy.

In a September speech before the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) called the Tax Code one of “government’s threats to job creation,” saying it “discourages investment and rewards special interests.”

Obama sounded a similar note last Wednesday in Iowa, one of five swing states he visited right after his State of the Union address.

“Right now, companies get all kinds of tax breaks when they move jobs and profits overseas,” the president said in a speech at Conveyor Engineering and Manufacturing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “A company that chooses to stay in America gets hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. That’s wrong. It doesn’t make sense.”